Using ionospheric corrections from the space-based augmentation systems for low earth orbiting satellites

Abstract

For low earth orbit satellite global positioning systems (GPS) receivers, ionospheric delay corrections from space-based augmentation system (SBAS) can be considered for real-time use. Due to the different total electron contents between ground and low altitude orbits, a scaling factor is required to adjust the ionospheric corrections. After an analysis of the scale factor determination with GPS data from the NASA/DLR gravity recovery and climate experiment satellite is conducted, evaluations of WAAS, MSAS, and EGNOS ionospheric correction accuracies are performed. In terms of the ionospheric correction error in 2012, SBAS outperforms GPS broadcast with the reduction of 42 %. This SBAS ionospheric correction accuracy shows a high level of correlation with solar flux F10.7.